Debunking false assumptions

The term next-generation OSS implies a few basic criteria or characteristics to me and my customer base. One is a more pre-integrated, plug-and-play capability for various network applications and interfaces. Another is the implied capability that they can take their management systems and integrate them directly with, say, a softswitch. There is the assumption of multi-product support so they can launch new services and commission new networks without major league work. Flow-through capabilities also are implied. The term basically implies automation beyond what has been possible.

But these are false assumptions.

Plug and play will never happen. Even with the stress of the last few years, too much innovation is still going on. There are too many moving parts, too many technologies and too many product ideas. People have been trying to define some kind of standard for 20 years and every time they get close to thinking they've got it, some whole new technology or slant on things comes along and stands the standard on its head.

Sometimes it makes sense to leverage some of the TeleManagement Forum's intellectual property with their NGOSS framework, but you can't build an NGOSS-compliant application today because I don't think anyone can tell you what it is. NGOSS is at best a data model that doesn't talk about interoperability; it just tries to reduce all the different data elements into a single standard so that hopefully everyone knows what everyone else is looking for.

My market is the Tier 3s and ILECs and the CLEC market such as it is today — it's a hard term to describe. So unlike the bigger markets, it's not unusual to see forklift replacements happen. More than half of what we do involves a complete replacement — at least from the customer care and billing and order management perspectives. It is difficult for these guys to do things on a modular or functional basis because most of the time their A-to-Z systems are pre-integrated.

Since this is a fairly limited market, most of the vendors have worked together already. Does that really mean pre-integrated, plug-and-play? No. As I said, that never happens. But even when a customer uses multiple vendors, it isn't a complete integration from a blank whiteboard either. It's usually somewhere in between.

That's a big deal for them, because the integration tax, or penalty, has scared the living daylights out of a lot of these guys. A carrier with 25,000 customers doesn't really want to get into the integration game. They don't have the stomach for it.

Neither does anyone else for that matter, but the big guys will do it if they have to.

The term “next generation OSS” often refers to whatever the one is beyond the one I already have. And it gets abused that way. The Tier 2 and Tier 3 players are really trying to get out in front of the industry. They have scale small enough to allow them to try new things and they are really testing us in some areas.

They are investing in new network technology such as softswitches, but also in the ability to make their existing software infrastructure work with everything from VoIP to video-over-DSL. Their need to be able to upgrade in order to offer new services and increase the average revenue per client is pretty strong.

It's hard to tell which new service is leading the charge, but an awful lot of Tier 3 guys are doing interesting things with video. They have to. They realized that the CLECs weren't going to be a big threat, but they all have a cable incumbent who is coming out with telephony. So they are trying to get out in front of that and keep the cable companies from stealing their customers.

The challenge there is having a combined ordering/provisioning system. The pricing mechanisms and the product management efforts get to be tough. So having a flexible configuration solution is a recurring theme for carriers, no matter what size. They want to know what range of packages they can put together. It's about bundling. Billing for bundles is not an issue, though; it's packaging them that's the issue. But I must say, if you want to put together a triple play, we tend to shine there.